A Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter has threatened legal action against a college newspaper for falsely accusing its members of committing various crimes.
The YAF chapter at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California, has frequently clashed with the school administration and other student groups that have tried to silence YAF members over their conservative views.
The Campus Journal, which bills itself as “The First Amendment student newspaper of Visalia’s College of the Sequoias,” published an article on Sunday accusing YAF members of vandalizing school property.
The College of the Sequoias (COS) Visalia campus was recently vandalized by members of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) club on the night of Tuesday, February 18th. Members posted on Instagram of the club using chalk to write messages on the pavement, including phrases like “Blue Lives Matter,” “Pro-Life” and “There Are Only Two Genders.” Some students have said that these messages have made them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.
Student Trustee Toby Shirk told The Campus Journal that “College is all about challenging ideas and expressing your own” but argued that “there’s a certain standard for which these are expected to be presented: in a respectful, academic, and conscientious manner.”
The author claims YAF members have “been preaching on campus under the guise of religious messaging while spreading hate, causing some students to feel so uncomfortable that they’ve stopped attending classes.”
No examples of this claim were provided in the piece.
The article further explained that the Student Senate invited a student to speak at a meeting to “highlight the impact of the YAF club’s behavior and other incidents affecting the campus climate.”
YAF’s attorneys sent a letter to The Campus Journal’s editor-in-chief asking her to correct the “defamatory” statements in the article. The letter states that the article “contains false and defamatory statements accusing the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) student group at the College of the Sequoias of engaging in vandalism on the Visalia campus.”
California law makes it actionable defamation to falsely accuse an individual or identifiable group of committing a crime, including vandalism. Under California Civil Code § 46, statements that charge someone with criminal activity are considered defamation per se, meaning harm to reputation is presumed, and the plaintiff does not need to prove actual damages. Additionally, California Penal Code § 594 classifies vandalism as a crime, making false accusations of such conduct particularly serious. If a defamatory statement targets a specific group, individual members may have a claim if the group is small or identifiable.
The attorneys demand that the newspaper “Immediately remove the defamatory article from your website and any other platforms where it has been published” and to “issue a public retraction and apology, acknowledging the false nature of the allegations against the YAF student group.”
The conflict started when the school stopped YAF members from chalking sidewalks on campus with messages expressing conservative views and promoting an upcoming event. The students had been told before and after the incident that using chalk to write messages was an acceptable form of expression.
Yet, while they were writing their messages, they were approached by a campus police officer who told them to stop. The school “sent out a crew to erase our chalk” the day after the incident. A school representative sent YAF an email “describing our expression of speech as ‘graffiti’ and likening it to toilet-papering a house,” according to a press release. “In the same email, our chapter was threatened with disciplinary action by the Administration, who blamed us for wasting the school’s resources to erase the chalk.”
This prompted the YAF chapter to hire a law firm to protect their First Amendment rights on campus.
The Campus Journal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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